Duplicated Package Cache folders and files in Windows 11

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Duplicated Package Cache folders and files in Windows 11

Anonymous

I'm running Windows 11 Pro, and getting warnings that my C: drive is full. I've been working through removing spurious files, but I have also run a scan using a package called SequoiaView. This shows me all the files on the drive, their relative sizes and the folders and directories they live in.

Going through, I spotted some duplicated files - in C:\programdata\package cache and C:\users\all users\package cache. There are 48 identical folders with a total size of over 1.3Gb. I've looked on this forum, and seen a post from a couple of years back that suggests that one of these sets of folders is essentially a link to the other, and that the files are only on the hard drive once. However, if this is the case - why is my scan showing both sets taking up the same amount of space?

I understand from the previous forum answers what the purpose of these files are, and that I shouldn't remove them, but if I've got two copies, using up valuable space, is there a way that one set can be removed? The previous post suggests that the c:\users folder is the 'symbolic' link, and that the programdata folder is the actual one.

While the issue of the hard drive filling is not purely caused by this, saving myself over a gigabyte would go a long way to preventing the system having issues! Thanks for your help!

(Older post for reference : https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/duplicate-folder-package-cache/045eb621-cc83-46be-8167-4e190abd49f5)

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Answer 1

Hi, Andy Brooks1

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

We understand your problem about duplicate package cache folders and files in Windows 11. We don't recommend that you delete these two folders. The folder C: \ Users \ all users \ PackageCache is a symbolic link of the folder C: \ Program Data \ PackageCache, which means that the folder under the path of All Users actually doesn't occupy any hard disk space at all, and belongs to Symlinkd symbolic link. It maps the programdata path folder, so deleting any folder will affect the Windows system. Ramesh Srinivasan and Paulo GM's instructions in the old posts you provided are correct.If you want to clean up the space of drive C, you can consider using other methods or starting with other files. For example, you can try the following cleaning methods:I. Use the built-in Disk Cleanup Tool.1. press Win+S to enter "disk cleaning" → select drive c → click "ok".2. Check the following options:*Windows update cleaningtemporary fileSystem error memory dump file**DirectX shader cache*3. Click "Clean System Files" → Check again and confirm deletion.II. Enable storage-aware automatic cleaning1. Open Settings → System → Storage.2. Open Storage Awareness → click Configure Storage Awareness or Run Now:-Set the automatic cleaning frequency (such as daily/weekly).-Check "Delete temporary files" and "Recycle Bin file retention time" (for example, 30 days).III. disable hibernation file (hiberfil.sys)Run CMD as an administrator, and then enter the following command:powercfg /h offThis method can release about 75% of the memory size (for example, 16GB of memory can release 12GB).In addition to the cleaning methods that come with the above Windows system, you can also consider using a trusted third-party cleaning tool to scan the cleanable files (due to the rules of the Microsoft community, we can't provide a specific list of third-party software, please forgive me).If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Best Regards

Nicholas.Z - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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Duplicated Package Cache folders and files in Windows 11

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